Is Nokia finally adopting Android?

Nokia has lately hinted its investors that the company might be preparing for a sweeping break with its past. Many perceive it to be an indication that Finnish mobile phone giant’s plans to switch to Android.

On a conference call following the company’s fourth-quarter report, Nokia’s new Chief Executive Stephen Elop talked about Nokia’s need to change rapidly in a fast-changing market place, and to consider “multiple ecosystem patterns”.

If the ongoing buzz is indeed correct, it would mean a clear break with the company’s earlier strategy. So far, the company has been adamant that it will not take up Android but instead manufacture its own smartphones around its homemade platforms– Symbian and MeeGo.

But the switch to Android seems very likely if one goes through the figures.

Google’s smartphone platform, which has been rapidly accepted by smartphone vendors across the globe including HTC, Motorola and Samsung, surged to a 26% share of the global smartphone platform market in the third quarter of 2010 from 3.5% a year earlier according to the latest figures from Gartner.

On the contrary, Nokia’s main smartphone platform Symbian fell to a 37% market share in that quarter from 45% the year before according to Gartner, as handset vendors Sony Ericsson and Samsung put their development plans for the operating system on hold to focus on Android instead.